re at it and every woman had on a dress which
entirely covered her. When I was a child I adored a person named
Wyman, who used to give performances in which all sorts of unexpected
things happened. Last night was a sort of Wyman night."

"I did not know you were going to parties." Selwyn's tone was curt.

"I am not--to your sort." My face flushed. "I said this girl was a
printer. I should have said she used to be. Two years ago she was
caught in some machinery at the place where she worked and has never
been able to stand up since. On her birthday her friends give her a
party that she may have a bit of brightness. I went over to play
that they might dance. She is fond of music and an old piano has
recently been given her by--by some one interested in her."

For a moment there was silence, then throwing his cigar in the fire,
Selwyn got up and stood looking down at me. In his eyes was strange
worry and unrest.

"I beg your pardon." He bit his lips. "I've been pretty ragged of
late and I'm always thoughtless. For two weeks I've seen no
one--that is, no friend of yours or mine who hasn't asked me why you
have done so inexplicable a thing as to leave everybody you know and
go into a part of the town where you know nobody and where--"

"It's because I want to know all sorts of people." Something in
Selwyn's face stopped me, and, getting up from the sofa, I went over
to the window and raised it slightly. My heart was pounding. I
could laugh away the questions of others and ignore their comments,
but with Selwyn this would be impossible. An overwhelming sense of
distance and separation came over me demoralizingly as I pretended to
rearrange the curtain, and for a moment words would not come.

I knew, of course, that Selwyn had neither patience nor sympathy with
my desire to know more of life than I could learn in the particular
world into which I had been born, but the keener realization to-night
made between us a wide and separating gulf, and I felt suddenly alone
and uncertain, and dispirited and afraid.

In our love of books, of digging deep into certain subjects, of
historic questing and speculative discussions we are closely
sympathetic, but in many viewpoints we are as apart as the poles.
Perhaps we will always be.

Selwyn by heritage and training and natural inclination is
conventional and conservative. I am not. To walk in beaten tracks
is not easy for me. I want to explore for myself. He